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Sunday, November 11, 2007

Laraine Day, whose long acting career included roughly a decade as a leading lady in many well-known films, has passed away.

Various references give at least three different years for her birth, which appears to have been somewhere between 1917 and 1920.

Day spent part of her childhood in nearby Long Beach, California, where she attended Polytechnic High School.

Day's husband of 47 years died earlier this year. Previous to that marriage, Day was famously wed for a number of years to Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher.

Day was perhaps best known for her role as Mary Lamont in MGM's DR. KILDARE series. Turner Classic Movies is showing a KILDARE marathon on November 28, 2007.

Day's best films include FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT and JOURNEY FOR MARGARET. FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT makes my "Top 5 Hitchcock Films" list, and JOURNEY FOR MARGARET is a somewhat overlooked WWII classic in which Day starred opposite Robert Young and Margaret O'Brien. Her other best-known titles include MR. LUCKY, opposite Cary Grant, and she was one of the airplane passengers in THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY.

Earlier this year I reviewed two fun Day films, BRIDE BY MISTAKE and THOSE ENDEARING YOUNG CHARMS. I've recorded several other Day films which I look forward to seeing, including KATHLEEN, THE LOCKET, KEEP YOUR POWDER DRY, and I MARRIED A COMMUNIST.

Just got them, Dana, this was the first time they got through! Wrote you back so let me know if it gets there OK.

I really like Laraine Day too, Anne...there's something so down-to-earth about her. She had a really interesting, well-rounded life.

(I was tickled by the anecdote that when Leo Durocher was posthumously inducted into Cooperstown, she was invited to the ceremony, though they'd been divorced for decades. She accepted the plaque, along with their son.)